XP SP1 problems: slow response, hangs, reboots

[7h95g]

I have a homebuilt P4 2.8ghz with 1gb ram, multiple hard drives and a
pagefile of 1500-3000MB on drive F.

Security is Zonealarm firewall, Norton antivirus and Ad-aware and Spybot
S&D for worms, trojans etc. All the windows updates have been installed.

The computer worked just fine with all of the present hardware but has
developed serious problems; it often responds very slowly and there's a lot
of unexplained hd accessing going on.

Occasionally there's BSOD's and crashes. I unchecked "automatically
restart" in the System failure values hoping to be able to read the BSOD
but to no avail - it displays for half a second and then it reboots.

I looked through Event viewer logs for Application and System (there's
nothing there under Security) but don't see anything that points to the
problems - but maybe that's my ignorance not knowiung what to look for.

I'm at my wits end. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks

 

[joshh]

*I have a homebuilt P4 2.8ghz with 1gb ram, multiple hard drives and
a
pagefile of 1500-3000MB on drive F.

Security is Zonealarm firewall, Norton antivirus and Ad-aware and
Spybot
S&D for worms, trojans etc. All the windows updates have been
installed.

The computer worked just fine with all of the present hardware but
has
developed serious problems; it often responds very slowly and there's
a lot
of unexplained hd accessing going on.

Occasionally there's BSOD's and crashes. I unchecked "automatically
restart" in the System failure values hoping to be able to read the
BSOD
but to no avail - it displays for half a second and then it reboots.

I looked through Event viewer logs for Application and System
(there's
nothing there under Security) but don't see anything that points to
the
problems - but maybe that's my ignorance not knowiung what to look
for.

I'm at my wits end. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks *

You might want to run updated scans to make sure its not a spyware
infection. As for the HDD activity and slowdown, have you cleaned out
junk from the system in a while? Also analyze the fragmentation levels,
seems like the drive cud be fragmented, if so run the disk defragmenter.
You should also run chkdsk bfore the defrag. disabl unwanted items from
loading at startup and also make sure it isnt a RAM problem.

A couple of links
http://www.pctechguide.com/tutorials/HDDMaint_Chkdsk.htm
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Check for your power supply and/or system cooling. The power supply may not
provide enough power for your PC. Or the fans may not be cooling the system
well enough.

 

[7h95g]

Check for your power supply and/or system cooling. The power supply
may not provide enough power for your PC. Or the fans may not be
cooling the system well enough.

the power supply is more than sufficient for the hardware (I made sure of
that when I put it together) and the side of the pc has always been open
so it doesn't overheat.